


Pinocchio boy

by another_bad_opinion



Category: IT - Stephen King
Genre: I ruined everything, Neibolt Richie, Neibolt kids, The House on 28 Neibolt Street (IT), and not in a good way, except only Richie, it's sad, it's short, it's short and sad, just like me, pennywise eats ass
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-10
Updated: 2019-11-10
Packaged: 2021-01-26 18:34:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 618
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21378652
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/another_bad_opinion/pseuds/another_bad_opinion
Summary: The heat of the embers surrounding him curled around his cold and inhuman body. It was comforting, in a way; a source of outside stimulation to remind him of his vague sentience. Although the feeling was a bit sadomasochistic, it still seemed nice.He had to get up soon, though.
Kudos: 41





	Pinocchio boy

The heat of the embers surrounding him curled around his cold and inhuman body. It was comforting, in a way; a source of outside stimulation to remind him of his vague sentience. Although the feeling was a bit sadomasochistic, it still seemed nice.

He had to get up soon, though.

He heard muffled voices- voices he remembered hearing before. Before all of this happened. What was the before, anyway? All he could recall was the sewers. Him, in the sewers, with that disgusting, putrid, wretched

_clown _

..

No.

No, he decided. There was no before.

That still didn't change the fact that he needed to get up now.

He tightened his stiff shoulders and pressed his hand against the pavement. The scrape of his wooden digits kept him grounded. That, and the voices of the people from his non-existent before. He used his frigid hand to support his weight enough to kneel on his knees, the scuffed up pads of his jeans unnecessarily softening the weight of his lanky frame. Only when he was on his knees did he look up.

His monotonous cloudy blue-gray eyes scanned the smoky terrain. He could spot slight movement from behind the clearing smoke. He wondered if those people could tell him where he was.

It took him a minute to regain his coordination; but when he did, he stood up shakily and took a small step forward.

_put one foot in front of the other_

A few breaths, and then another unsteady step.

_and soon you'll be walking 'cross the floor_

Sooner than he knew, he was crossing the asphalt with rough toy soldier movements. He supposed, for a moment, that he quite resembled a puppet of some sort. Perhaps a marionette.

Yes, that's exactly what he looked like.

Wooden appendages separated by screws and bolts, greying eyes that showed no feeling. Coke bottle glasses that just magnified those terrible foggy eyes further, Coke bottle glasses that kept constantly falling down his face,

_Coke bottle glasses that Henry keeps breaking in a vicious fight with that their very lives depend upon to win_

Perfectly imperfect and wild hair that seemed as if it hadn't been brushed for

_27 YEARS_

weeks, yet still seeming acceptable in a community.

He looked just like a doll.

By the time he'd shed these thoughts from his one-track mind, the smoke had thinned enough that he had a full view of everything.

He could see the sources of the voices.

And after a moment, he realized that he did have a before. 

A before that was grinning as fat tears rolled down her face.

_ Beverly _

A before that was smiling sadly, his face unstained by tears but pain clear in his eyes as he held himself.

_Ben_

A before that was shaken to the core, bloodstained and traumatized but stood triumphant and dissatisfied with the outcome of something. 

_Stan_

A before that was grinning wide, perhaps the widest of all as he kept the others tight to his chest. He still looked hurt, though- and he found himself wishing that they held the before as tightly as the before held the others.

_Mike_

A before with a destroyed demeanor about him, torn up to the core about something that had happened recently. His face was splotchy with wetness, and he almost wanted to reach out and wipe the wetness away, but he knew that he couldn't.

_Eddie_

A before that was shaking hard and blubbering to the others, a melancholy glee written over his scratched up face.

_Bill_

And as he realized he had a before, he also realized that the before would do just fine without him.

He turned around and disappeared back into the smoke.


End file.
